


patched up the pavement with the promise of us

by eneiryu



Series: constructed a world from the scars on our hands [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A Ball Can Be Symbolic Of Anything But First It Has To Be A Ball, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Choices We Choose to Make
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:44:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eneiryu/pseuds/eneiryu
Summary: What they don’t tell you: deciding to choose a different road never requires only one choice.





	patched up the pavement with the promise of us

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant as a fun little distraction at a point where I was stuck on _out in the wilds_, and then--unsurprisingly--got away from me a bit. 
> 
> As always, all the love to those who leave comments/kudos/reblogs/etc.--y'all make my day every time. 
> 
> Last but not least--keep the prompts coming. I've got a backlog that I'm working through, but they are being worked through--Scout's honor.

The bracelet just shows up one day, perched awkwardly enough on Theo’s nightstand—repurposed-Costco-produce-box, _ whatever_, Liam—that Theo’s first interaction with it is when he knocks it off the edge, groaning and with his eyes still closed, as he slaps out a hand to try and silence his shrieking phone alarm one dreary winter morning. 

It’s too light to make much of a sound when it hits the ground but Theo hears it anyway, rolls over on his mattress—a real one, now, even if it is still on the floor—to peer at it over the edge. There’s nothing inherently suspicious about it except that Theo doesn’t remember seeing it before, has no idea how it got into his apartment or when, and has no absolutely no idea where it came from. Frowning, he reaches forward and picks it up, then rolls back over onto his back as he holds it over his face, studying it. 

Scenting it tells him next to nothing because it smells a little like the generic press of climate-controlled air and a little like Liam. The former tells him only that it’d recently been bought from a store with a working AC unit and the latter tells him nothing, because _ everything _in Theo’s apartment smells a little like Liam these days. The bracelet itself is made of dark brown leather, maybe a few shades off from the tracking bracelet that Argent had made Deaton put on him, though its surface is unmarked and smooth. It closes like a real, non-magical bracelet, too; with dangling strings that tie together. 

The sight of it does something to Theo’s chest—to his sister’s heart—but Theo isn’t quite sure what. He spends a few minutes staring up at it, his fingers running around and around it—just like they used to run around and around Argent’s bracelet—and then his phone trills, loud and insistent and jarring enough to make him swear and drop the mystery bracelet on his face in surprise. Sputtering some, Theo fishes the bracelet from where it’d fallen between his neck and shoulder and tosses it back onto the nightstand, leaves it there when he reaches for his phone to stop it buzzing and vibrating its way angrily across the top of the nightstand. 

“You said seven-thirty,” Theo tells Argent the instant he brings his phone up to his ear, the bracelet forgotten as he pushes himself to his feet and heads for the rickety dresser he’d found at a garage sale, and which Liam is absolutely _ convinced _ is going to give up the ghost and collapse any day now, “I _ distinctly _ remember you saying seven-thirty, because it was right after you said six-thirty and I laughed at you.”

He’s just finished getting ready and is heading for his impractical staircase, Argent already outside waiting and sending increasingly irritated texts to Theo’s phone—which Theo takes great pleasure in pointedly ignoring, because the clock on his screen when it first lights up says _ 7:04, _ and then _ 7:06, _ and then _ 7:07_—when he spots the bracelet still sitting on the nightstand. Theo considers it for a moment, and then—pulling his lip between his teeth—he reaches out and snags it, holds it between two fingers as he grabs his jacket, as he locks his door and slips into the already-closing elevator down the hallway, smiling apologetically at the bleary-eyed businesswoman and the early-morning runner already inside. 

He ends up tying the bracelet onto his left wrist between floors, and shakes his jacket sleeve over the thin strip of leather on his way to Argent’s SUV.

\---

Theo doesn’t get back to his apartment until late—_late_—that night, feeling grimy and exhausted and weirdly insubstantial, his head feeling like it's barely attached to his shoulders. Part of that is hunger—somewhere, Theo is sure Liam has just thought _ depleted battery _ to himself and doesn’t even know why—but part of it is the sheer amount of _ ground _ he and Argent had covered, deep and deeper into the Preserve with Theo straining every one of his senses looking for turned soil, for disturbed earth; for graves. 

They’d found three, all werewolves, all with silver bullets in their bodies because at first Monroe hadn’t understood the legends and then she hadn’t cared. Had thought it poetic, maybe; she’d been the type. Theo leans back against his closed front door for a moment and covers his face with his hands, breathes out between his fingers before scrubbing his palms roughly over his cheeks. 

The drag of the bracelet over his skin startles him badly enough that he jerks back against the door, the back of his skull throbbing dully with the impact. Staring at the bracelet wrapped around his left wrist, Theo brings up his right hand and wraps his thumb and right middle finger over it; covering it, just like he used to cover Argent’s bracelet back when it’d still been magically sealed around his wrist; a choke-chain just like Heidenrich had said, keeping him collared. 

All at once wearing the damn thing seems idiotic—he doesn’t even know where it _came_ _from_, for christ’s sake—and so Theo snarls silently, pulls his right hand away just long enough to use his right fingers to pull at the strings holding the bracelet closed, yank it open and off. For a moment he considers shredding it, that old trapped feeling back and flaring in his chest, and this bracelet isn’t _that_ bracelet but it’d be _something_, but he—doesn’t. Instead he closes his fingers around it lying innocuously in his palm and then huffs a harsh breath, heads upstairs to shower and tosses it angrily back onto his nightstand as he passes it. 

When he gets out, all the dirt scrubbed away and the stench of death from the graves they’d found at least covered up with the aggressive chemical burn of soap, Liam is lying on his mattress, one of Theo’s cheap paperbacks in his hand and his heartbeat slow, even; a few more minutes of quiet from sliding into sleep. Still, he looks over when Theo comes out of the bathroom, grins sleepily at him and drops the book onto his chest, his thumb kept between the pages to mark his place. Theo feels warmth flare at the core of himself and go slip-sliding through his veins, burning away the earlier _ whatever _ from his experience with the bracelet at the door; he closes the distance between them in a few short strides, climbs onto the mattress and has half-covered Liam before Liam can do much more than lift the book out of the way with a startled laugh.

“Hi,” He greets, sounding bemused but unbothered, his fingers tripping lightly over the exposed bumps of Theo’s spine; he stops when he gets to the towel still wrapped around Theo’s waist, drags his fingertips back up Theo’s damp back until he can card them gently through Theo’s wet hair, cup the back of his skull.

Theo doesn’t answer, just buries his face a little harder against Liam’s neck and shivers at the feeling of Liam’s hold, his absently scratching fingers. With his nose pressed up against Liam’s skin and his ribcage pressed up against Liam’s own—the feeling like Liam’s heart beating inside his own ribs—it gets harder and harder to hold onto the memories of standing over another sloppily-dug grave, Argent behind him marking the location so that they could give it to the Sheriff; another missing-persons case closed. Theo presses in a little harder, hard enough that he has to be compressing Liam’s own lungs, but Liam doesn’t protest, just drops the book he’d been holding onto the floor with a muted thump and brings his other hand up, wraps it around Theo’s back and digs his fingers in; Theo shudders.

“Three more, huh?” Liam eventually murmurs, his breath stirring the hair on the top of Theo’s head.

“Yeah,” Theo mumbles, barely audible with his face still hidden in Liam’s shoulder; chances are Liam doesn’t hear him so much as feel his lips move.

“That’s good,” Liam tells him, then seems to catch his wording and winces, some of the sleepiness jolted away from his voice as he hurries to clarify, “Not that it’s _ good _ that they were violently murdered, but _ good _ that maybe they’ll have some peace, now, y’know, with you and Argent and the Sher—”

Theo had started smiling helplessly midway through Liam’s rambling and he eventually gives into the urge bubbling in his chest and kisses him, cutting off his words still tripping over each other even as Theo covers Liam’s mouth with his own. Liam makes a surprised noise and then a disgruntled huff—Theo had maybe continued to make gratuitous use of the realization that he could end a lot of conversations with mid-sentence kisses since that first time, back in Junichiro’s foyer—but he kisses back, deepens it with a swipe of his tongue over Theo’s lips. His fingers tighten in Theo’s hair and against his back, and Theo swallows back a sound and shifts to more fully cover him.

Liam makes room for him, brings his knees up to cage Theo’s hips as they continue to kiss, as Theo brings his hands up to clench in Liam’s ridiculous hair. But as quickly as arousal had burned hot and quickly through him—through them both, if obvious evidence is to be believed—it levels back out into its always, _ always _ present steady thrum almost as quickly. The pace of their kissing slows, goes from heavy and heated to softer and gentler, until finally Theo raises up a little so that he can look at Liam, search his face; so that he can let Liam search his. 

“Long day,” Liam offers, giving him a small, quirked smile as he does.

“Long day,” Theo echoes, and kisses him again, lingering but only once, before shifting to the side, onto the mattress beside him.

He keeps one hand over Liam’s heart, though; falls asleep with its steady beating under his fingertips and the sound of Liam quietly turning the pages of his retrieved book, his free hand dropped to cover Theo’s own.

\---

He wakes up the next morning under the covers—he vaguely remembers Liam harassing him into half-assedly assisting Liam in getting them out from underneath himself some time last night—but he’s still naked, and alone. Raising his head, Theo glances around through sleep-slitted eyes, stretches his senses out reflexively and catches the sound of Liam banging around downstairs in the kitchen, doing—something. If Theo focused he could probably figure it out, but instead he groans and drops his head back onto his pillow, winds up burrowing a little further into it when he realizes that it smells like Liam, like himself; like the both of them together.

By the time he makes it downstairs—now officially wearing pants—Liam has managed to put together a plate of half-burned bacon, the mass of it sat on a paper towel to drain, and is currently frowning down at a nonstick pan as he carefully swirls the beaten eggs inside it around. Watching Liam try to make an omelette is a guaranteed road to hilarity, so Theo snags one of the stools—rescued from a closing bar and permanently smelling of spilled beer and stale peanuts—in front of the kitchen island and settles in, grinning when Liam preemptively raises a middle finger over one shoulder.

The omelette is only a little misshapen and Theo had apparently had non-expired cheese in his fridge, so his attempted schadenfreude gets diverted into a purposefully exaggerated surprise and a genuine bloom of warmth in his chest instead, which only grows when Liam rolls his eyes and slides onto a second rescued stool beside Theo’s, his own plate in front of him. They eat mostly in a comfortable silence, broken only every now and then as one of them gets up to fight with Theo’s ancient thrift-store coffeemaker, or turn off the burner that Liam inevitably forgot was still on. 

“You going out again today?” Liam asks quietly some time later as they’re maneuvering around each other, slotting their dirty dishes into the dishwasher and Theo scrubbing the two pans Liam had used clean. 

Theo smothers a yawn with the back of one sudsy wrist, nods, “Argent wants to try and find as many victims as we can before the ground fully freezes.”

Liam’s scent dips and his eyes go briefly hooded as he jerks to stare out the kitchen window, but he comes back to himself quickly, shakes his head briskly to clear it of whatever thoughts he’d wandered into and then smiles slightly at he looks back at Theo, “Okay. I’ve got to head home to help my parents put up lights, but we should be done before you and Argent get back. Text me when you’re home, okay?”

Theo grimaces, looks away from him for a beat as he says, a little haltingly, “Liam, you don’t—I’m fine. You don’t have to, I don’t know, check up on me.”

Liam just rolls his eyes and leans over, gets a hand on Theo’s face so he can turn it towards his own as he answers, “Yeah, I know I don’t _ have _ to,” before kissing him, fast but hard before he murmurs _ I’ll see you tonight _ against his lips and heads out. 

Theo stares after him for a long moment, and then he sighs heavily and finishes rinsing off the pan, sets it on a towel by the sink to dry. He spends a minute or so with his hands braced on the counter, his head dropped low on his neck as he closes his eyes and breathes, but then he moves, because the clock on the microwave is portending Argent’s inevitable arrival. 

The bracelet is under his phone on his nightstand when he picks it up on his way out; he spends a long second staring at it, and then he picks it up, too.

\---

Theo doesn’t plan to text Liam when he gets home, but it hardly matters; Liam is already there when he rolls open his front door.

“Surprise,” He says dryly when he sees the look on Theo’s face, Theo stood in the doorway and staring at him stretched out on the couch; he’s got his tablet propped up on the coffee table, though he reaches out to pause whatever’s playing as Theo watches.

For a moment Theo considers letting the barbed feeling in his chest flare into outright annoyance—or, more insidiously tempting, anger—but then he huffs a breath and lets it go, rolls the door back shut behind himself and locks it. Liam is studying him through hooded eyes when Theo turns back around, and while he’s managing to keep his thoughts off his face, he can’t keep them out of his scent; the smell of his worry makes Theo’s nose itch, Theo barely resisting the urge to wrinkle it in response. Instead he shucks his damp jacket—he and Argent had gotten caught in a miserable wet winter storm on their way back through the Preserve—and hangs it on one of the pegs Derek had helped him screw into the wall, drops heavily down onto his ass so that he can tug at the water-swollen laces of his boots.

Liam doesn’t seem to take his silence personally, just rolls to his feet after half a minute or so and starts wandering his way closer to Theo still fighting with his laces. “How many?” He asks quietly when he’s close, and Theo winds up yanking hard enough on the lace of his left boot that he snaps it.

Closing his eyes, he forces himself to breathe in slowly through his nose, just as slowly back out of it, before he answers neutrally, “Four.” Damage done, he pulls the ruined laces out of his left boot so that he can pull it off, start fighting with his right, “A family of coyotes.”

“There was a family of coyotes in Beacon Hills? I didn’t know that,” Liam replies blankly, and then the implication seems to fully catch up with him and he adds, “Shit,” more softly.

“No one did,” Theo answers Liam’s first observation, ignoring his second because, well: what else is there to say, really? Yanking his second boot off, Theo kicks both it and his other boot vaguely in the direction of the wall as he corrects, “At least, no one did until three-quarters of the Sheriff’s station defected to Monroe, anyway.”

Groaning, and giving into the exhaustion that he can feel weighing down on him, Theo lets himself fall backwards flat on his back, his hands over his face. This time the drag of the mystery bracelet doesn’t startle him, and more than that—he slides his right fingers over until he can hook them in the leather, pull the bracelet tight against his own skin; he closes his eyes and concentrates on the sensation of it digging into his wrist so he doesn’t have to concentrate on the way his hands and clothes reek of mud and frostbitten, decaying bodies. 

But his eyes snap open and he tilts his head so he can look at Liam when Liam suddenly says, “Hey, you’re wearing it,” sounding surprised and a little pleased.

It takes Theo a moment to realize he’s talking about the bracelet, and then he glances up at it—his wrists still resting bonelessly against his forehead—and back at Liam as he replies, “This is yours?”

“Well, I mean, technically it’s yours. I bought it for you, which I told you the other…” He trails off when he sees the skeptical look that Theo is giving him, squints and then slowly says, “Or…I started to tell you, and then we got, uh. Distracted.”

Now that Liam’s jogged his memory, Theo can in fact recall the night that he’s talking about, and _ distracted _ is certainly one word for the way that Liam had started out saying _ hey, I got you something_, as he’d climbed the stairs, and then apparently had gotten side-tracked when he’d seen Theo just in the process of unbuttoning his jeans, shirt already off as he’d prepared to switch into sweats. 

Theo’s not exactly complaining about the outcome, but he still raises an eyebrow and counters, “‘We’ got distracted?,” in a perfectly communicative tone.

Liam makes a face and then takes the single step necessary so that he can drop down next to Theo’s prone head as he says, deliberately over-loud, “Point is, you’re wearing it.”

Theo snorts a laugh but the amusement fades quickly, confusion eating away at it, “Why’d you get me a bracelet in the first place?”

Liam just quirks him a smile and jerks his chin at—the place where Theo still has the fingers of his right hand tangled in the leather of the bracelet. “Because of that,” He answers. He says it in this weirdly gentle voice, and he seems to catch his own tone because he grimaces some and looks away, adds, “You, um. You’d play with your bare wrist a lot, like you were looking for Argent’s old bracelet. And you always looked a little…lost, I guess, when you didn’t find it. So.” He concludes, darting a look there-and-back at Theo under his half-ducked brow, and gesturing vaguely with the arms he’d wrapped loosely around his knees.

Theo studies him for a moment, and then points out, “Argent put that bracelet on me back when he thought I might betray Scott. Back when he thought I might betray—” _ you_, he thinks, but doesn’t say, “—the pack. It was a house-arrest bracelet, not a fashion accessory.”

“Yeah, well. When you put it like _ that_,” Liam mutters, heat coloring his cheeks.

But Theo—put like _ that _ or not, he feels heat bloom in his chest to match Liam’s cheeks, crunches upwards until he can slide a hand into Liam’s hair, pull Liam’s mouth to his. Liam makes a startled noise and reflexively catches his wrist—his _ left _ wrist, with _ Liam’s _ bracelet around it—and then Liam makes a softer, quieter moan and opens his mouth for Theo’s tongue, kisses him back even as Theo encourages him gently down, until Liam is half-lying over him on the floor. Groaning, Theo shakes his wrist free of both Liam’s hair and his hold and drops it to his waist, hooks his fingers in one of Liam’s belt loops and tugs to try and pull Liam further over him.

“Seriously?” Liam says, breaking the kiss and laughing, “We are on the _ floor_.”

“We’ve been worse places,” Theo mutters, and then gives up on Liam cooperating with him and rolls them both over so that he’s covering Liam instead, his hips slotting in-between Liam’s spread knees.

“Oh, have we?” Liam counters, but he rocks his hips up when Theo rocks down against him, shudders with a bitten-off sound, already half-hard.

Theo doesn’t dignify that with an answer, because the answer is _ yes_, and it’s almost always Liam’s fault; if Theo had a dollar for every time they’d almost gotten caught because Liam is, to put it lightly, _ kind of an asshole_, Theo could buy a new goddamn truck. Instead he slides his hands underneath Liam’s shirt, drags his fingers up over the bumps of Liam’s ribs, taking Liam’s shirt with him as he goes. Liam groans but lifts his shoulders and then his arms so that Theo can pull it off of him, get it tossed away—somewhere; Theo is too concerned with getting his hands back on Liam’s now-bare skin to notice where.

Liam gives as good as he gets, though he leaves Theo’s shirt alone for the moment in favor of sliding them into the back of his jeans, gripping Theo’s ass and hauling him harder against himself. Theo has to break off kissing him to gasp against the side of Liam’s neck at the bolt of arousal that goes through him as the movement grinds their hips together, moves with Liam when Liam encourages him to do it again and then _ again_, just to hear the breathy moan that Liam gives by his ear. 

But that just reminds him that there are still too many layers of clothes between them and Theo rears up—ignoring Liam’s startled protest—and sits back on his heels, gets his hands on the button of Liam’s jeans. Liam’s complaining cuts off pretty quickly after that and he brings up his suddenly-free hands to dig the heels of his palms against his eyes, arches up with a groan as Theo gets him unbuttoned and unzipped. Taking ruthless advantage, Theo gets Liam’s jeans and briefs shoved down, gets himself out of the way so that he can finish pulling them off before he reclaims his place between Liam’s knees.

He starts to bend down to take Liam’s mouth again but switches targets at the last second, fastens his lips and then his teeth over Liam’s left nipple as his hand comes up to cover Liam’s right, rolling it between his fingers. Liam gasps and jolts _ hard _ underneath him and scrabbles at his shoulders, his fingers bunching around Theo’s shirt as Theo continues to suck and _ bite _ at his chest. 

“Fucking—_fuck_,” He manages, panting, “You’re still wearing your fucking _ shirt_, c’mon, Theo!”

That’s both true and a good point but Theo plans on ignoring both of those things, except Liam doesn’t; he gets a hand in Theo’s hair and hauls him up by it, crushes their mouths together as he drops his hands to the hem of Theo’s shirt, starts dragging it up. They have to break off kissing so that Liam can finish pulling it off him, but Theo dives right back in once it’s gone, presses Liam back flat and moans against Liam’s mouth at the feel of them now chest-to-chest.

But the valleys of Liam’s ribs, the peaks of Liam’s nipples, aren’t all that Theo feels; the tip of Liam’s cock drags against his now-bare stomach and Theo moans again, kisses Liam harsh and quick before starting to slide down his body. Liam realizes almost instantly where he’s going and can’t stop from arching some, the muscles of his stomach going taut and his heels scrabbling against—against the _ floor_, which they are still on, _ christ_. But Theo doesn’t care, just fits his hands around the curves of Liam’s hipbones and pins them down, glances up at Liam with a smirk.

“Oh, you’re going to pick _ right now _ to be an asshole?” Liam demands, but he sounds out-of-breath and half-wild, and his knees are squeezing tight around Theo’s ribs.

“I was thinking about it, yeah,” Theo admits, but then—just as Liam goes to open his mouth to no doubt give a smart-mouthed reply—he leans down and takes Liam in his mouth, just slides as low and deep as he can.

“Oh, fuck—_fuck _ you,” Liam pants out, but his fingers immediately tangle in Theo’s hair and one of his legs curls over one of Theo’s shoulders, his heel digging _ hard _ into Theo’s back.

Theo just grins around Liam and presses his juddering hips back to the floor, presses harder when Liam makes a high-pitched whine at the move and jolts. But keeping them pinned lets Theo take his time, lets him close his lips around Liam’s cock heavy on his tongue and slowly, _ slowly _ drag his mouth back up, pause with the very tip of Liam still in his mouth before sliding just as slowly back down. Liam is swearing in a pretty much never-ending stream above him and the fingertips in his hair feel just the slightest bit _ too _ sharp to be completely human, and Theo has to swallow back his own moan.

His slow pace doesn’t last. Liam’s constant tugging at his hair and the jerking of his hips against Theo’s restraining grip aside, the taste and smell and sound of his arousal drives up Theo’s own, and it isn’t long before he’s bobbing his head more quickly, loosening his hold on Liam’s hips so that Liam can rise up to meet him. Sliding his hands up, Theo splays his fingers over Liam’s stomach, feels the muscles of his abdomen start to winch tighter and tighter and knows Liam is getting close when he feels them tense, Liam’s heel dragging up Theo’s back as he gives a single, broken moan, and comes just as Theo deliberately takes him as deep as he can.

Pinning his hips back down, Theo holds him steady as he swallows, feels Liam jerk against him with a bitten-off cry as he does. He deliberately keeps Liam in his mouth even once he feels him start to soften, doesn’t pull off until Liam gives a throaty whine and kicks him not-so-gently with the heel he’s still got draped over Theo’s shoulder. Then he sits back and looks down at Liam through hooded eyes, touches his tongue to his bottom lip; Liam stares up at him, wide-eyed, and then groans and covers his face with his hands.

But he also wraps his legs around Theo’s waist, uses them to knock him off-balance with Theo giving a started _ oof _ as he lands on his hands and knees over Liam. Dropping his hands away from his face, Liam grins up at him and then darts up to kiss him, lingers there for a second as he licks into Theo’s mouth, then tempts him to follow him down as he lays back flat. 

Theo should recognize it as a trap but doesn’t, at least not until he’s suddenly staring up at his own ceiling after Liam flips them. Tilting his chin down, he glares at Liam, whose grin has widened to truly shit-eating proportions, his hands on either side of Theo’s head. Theo is about to say something—Liam is looking _ far _ too pleased with himself—when Liam sits back on his heels, his legs on either side of Theo’s still-clothed hips, and then _ grinds _ down. Sucking in a harsh breath, Theo’s hands fly to Liam’s hips, clutching tight as Liam does it _ again_.

“Jesus, _ fuck_,” Theo gasps, his fingers spasming around the tops of Liam’s thighs, the muscles of his lower back; the next instant he can’t help himself and he slides one hand around Liam’s side until he can press two fingers against Liam’s entrance, though he doesn’t press in, just groans in frustration. 

Liam just smirks down at him and presses back against the touch, his fingers spider-walking up from Theo’s clenching abdomen to his chest as he says, “This is what you _ get _ for starting this on the _ floor_, away from all possible sources of lube.”

Theo glares at him but there’s really nothing to say, because Liam’s right and they both know it. Moving to rectify the situation sounds like the absolute _ worst _ possible outcome, except for the possible outcome where Theo stays trapped in his jeans, on the floor, with Liam deliberately rocking his hips in small, mind-blowingly good increments, and no lube. Huffing and resigning himself to having to get up—and having to break away from Liam to do it—he nonetheless uses the leverage he’s got to knock one knee into Liam’s back, send him flailing onto his hands and knees with an unintentional but delightfully comedic squawk so that Theo can get his hands around Liam’s head, kiss him deep and dirty. 

And then he pulls the same move that Liam had pulled on him earlier, and gets them flipped.

“Oh, turnabout,” Liam scoffs, as Theo is in the process of pushing himself up so that he can head for the couch, and more specifically the coffee table, with its drawer full of stolen restaurant mints and plastic takeout silverware and the bottle of lube that one of them—Theo honestly can’t remember who—stashed there at some point, “You’re just lucky I understand that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Theo rolls his eyes and doesn’t respond. Or he doesn’t respond _ initially_, but he responds seconds later when Liam collides with his back, his breath leaving him in a rush at the impact. He’s about to ask _ what the hell_, except that Liam gets his arms around Theo’s waist and drops his hands to Theo’s fly, starts unbuttoning and unzipping him in a surprising show of dexterity, considering that he’s got his face buried in Theo’s neck where he’s biting at the top of Theo’s spine. Theo staggers a step with a moan but recovers quickly enough, lets himself lean back against Liam some as Liam takes advantage of his unbuttoned jeans to slide one hand down into Theo’s briefs, get a hand around his cock.

“God, _ Liam _,” Theo gasps, and turns his head so that he can kiss Liam over his own shoulder, Liam opening up for his tongue as his hand continues to work Theo’s cock.

And it’s good—it’s _ great_—but Theo wants something else, wants something _ more_, and apparently Liam does, too, because just as Theo’s stomach is starting to tense and his toes are starting to curl, Liam takes his hand away. Theo bites back a sound at the loss but it’s almost instantly forgotten when Liam starts working his jeans and briefs over his hips, the two of them still trading sloppy kisses. 

Once they’re off Theo steps out of them and turns to face Liam in the same movement, starts pulling him back towards the couch and coffee table. Liam makes a skeptical noise and tries to pull back—clearly concerned about an oncoming collision—but Theo doesn’t let him, just maneuvers them cleanly around the coffee table and then sits when he feels the couch hit the back of his knees, pulls Liam down with him.

“Show-off,” Liam mutters, but he’s laughing quietly as he says it, his knees digging into the couch cushions on either side of Theo’s hips and his ass settling perfectly down over Theo’s hard cock; Theo can’t resist bucking up against him and Liam sucks in a sharp breath, grinds down in turn.

His earlier deft maneuvering of them onto the couch or not, the real test of Theo’s skill is going to be whether he can retrieve the lube from the coffee table without breaking off kissing Liam. He fumbles a hand out for it, and feels the back of his knuckles rap against the edge of the coffee table just as Liam gives a particularly sinuous roll of his hips and Theo groans. But he also realizes that Liam is doing it on _ purpose_, Liam’s smirk against Theo’s lips and his fluttering heartbeat giving him away, and so Theo smirks back and then drops his mouth to Liam’s shoulder, _ bites _ just as he gets two fingers hooked in the handle of the coffee table’s drawer.

Liam gasps and jolts hard enough against him that Theo has to wrap his other arm around Liam’s waist to keep him from falling off his lap, his fingers anchored around Liam’s far hip digging in _ hard _at the bolt of sensation that the movement of Liam’s ass against his cock sends through him. Luckily Liam seems distracted by the worrying of Theo’s teeth around the meat of his shoulder, and Theo manages to get his hand inside the drawer, searches around for a few seconds before he feels his fingers bump up against the small bottle he’d been looking for. He retrieves it with a satisfied huff and slams the drawer shut, leans back and arches up against Liam with the bottle in one hand.

“You do—you do _ realize_,” Liam starts to say, panting it out as he rocks down to meet Theo’s rolling thrusts, Theo reaching his hands back behind him to fumble the little bottle open and spill some lube onto his fingers, “that if we do this here, on the couch, Scott and Derek and Malia are going to _ know—_”

He cuts off with a bitten-off cry when Theo presses a slick finger against his entrance, nods frantically against Theo’s cheek where he’s pressed the side of his head as Theo pauses, waiting.

“Scott and Derek and Malia are _ hypocrites _,” Theo counters as he slides his finger inside, groaning and turning to press his forehead against Liam’s jaw at the feeling of Liam tight and hot around him, “I’m pretty sure Stiles has made it a mission to desecrate every surface in Derek’s apartment between himself, Derek, and Lydia, and Scott and Malia are almost as bad.”

He’s pretty much rambling at this point, all his focus on the slick glide of his finger in and out of Liam’s body, the sounds Liam makes and the way Liam presses back to meet him, but Theo still barks out a laugh when Liam mutters, “Not worse than Mason and Corey. _ No place _is safe in the Hewitt household at this point.”

“So then we’re just—evening the score,” Theo murmurs cajolingly, and presses a second finger against Liam’s entrance.

“Yeah,” Liam agrees nonsensically, nodding short and sharp once in permission and then moaning, long and loud, his fingers digging into Theo’s shoulders as Theo presses both fingers inside him, “_Yeah_, s’only—s’only fair.”

But he must not be all that concerned with the relative fairness of the pack’s inability to find places to sit at each other’s houses, because he gives up on that train of thought quickly and takes Theo’s mouth instead, kissing him hard and rough and a little frantically, his hips working back against Theo’s hand. Theo kisses him back just as hard, pausing only to add a third finger once he’s sure Liam’s ready for it, Liam beating him to asking for permission by hissing _ god, yes, just to do it already _ directly into his ear.

It doesn’t take long for Liam to adjust to three fingers, and soon enough he’s smacking a hand down on Theo’s shoulder and moaning _ I’m ready, c’mon_. Groaning, Theo slides his fingers out of Liam and throws out his clean hand, looking for the little bottle of lube and getting another mass of it on his fingers so that he can slick himself up, all the while Liam is holding Theo’s head between his hands and kissing him, his tongue a very tempting distraction. Theo manages, though, and is just about to get a hand around the base of his cock so that he can hold himself steady when Liam knocks his hand away and does it instead, holds Theo where he wants him as he braces his other hand on Theo’s shoulder and slowly, _ slowly _ lowers himself down.

“Jesus,” Theo gasps, and gives up on any delusion of controlling the situation, just clamps his hands around Liam’s hips and drops his head back against the top of the couch with a jagged groan.

Liam gets Theo fully seated inside himself and then stops, slumps panting against Theo’s chest as he adjusts to the feeling. His thighs are trembling minutely and Theo moans quietly, slides his hands down from Liam’s hips so that he can dig the heels of his palms against them, massaging the tense muscles. Liam jolts and bites off a cry, his arms sliding up and around Theo’s shoulders and clutching tightly, his face turning towards Theo’s as he looks for a kiss. Theo gives it to him, keeps digging his fingers into Liam’s thighs and then trails them up and around until he can dig them into the muscles of Liam’s lower back instead.

It takes half a minute, less, and then Theo knows that Liam is ready because the open-mouthed curve of his panting mouth against Theo’s goes sharp. That’s literally the only warning Theo gets, and then Liam is rising up on his knees, dropping back down, and the fingers that Theo had braced around his back go bruisingly tight, just hanging on as Liam moves. The angle isn’t the greatest but Theo doesn’t _ care_, just leans up to mouth at whatever parts of Liam’s neck and jaw he can reach as Liam shudders and moans above him, Theo’s hands sliding back to the curve of Liam’s hips, the clench-and-release of his working thighs.

Except _ Liam _ must care, because he bites off a frustrated noise after a while and then gets his hands buried in Theo’s hair, uses them to encourage him to straighten up off the back of the couch, follow the pressure of Liam’s hands until he’s leaning forward. Theo’s not exactly sure what Liam is trying to accomplish until suddenly he _ is_, and he moans and twists the way that Liam is guiding him to. The instant after he does Liam makes a satisfied sound and drops the hands he’d had in Theo’s hair onto his shoulders, shoving him back flat on the couch and following him as Theo goes. 

Theo stares up at him when they land, some of the urgency of the situation momentarily fading as he and Liam lock eyes. Bringing up a hand—his _ left _ hand, Theo realizes, catching the flash of brown leather out of the corner of his eye—he buries it in Liam’s hair, uses the grip to encourage him up so that Theo can kiss him, deep but slow; careful. Liam kisses him back just as deeply, just as slowly, his hands coming up to frame Theo’s face for a moment, thread back through his hair.

But Theo is still buried deep inside him and Liam’s thighs are still trembling against his hips, and it doesn’t take long for their momentarily-faded arousal to burst right back into flame. Theo gets his feet flat on the couch cushions as he starts to rock his hips up, and Liam—Liam drops his hands from Theo’s hair to his shoulders, starts sliding them over and then under Theo’s arms until he can encourage them up, up, Theo releasing Liam’s hair with a curious noise that turns into a moan when Liam threads their fingers together and then uses the grip he has around Theo’s hands to pin his arms stretched-out above his head. 

“_Fuck_, Liam,” Theo breathes, and can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed when Liam grins—Cheshire-wide and satisfied—down at him in response before he starts to _ move_.

The new angle and extra space means that Liam can take him deep and he _ does_, rising up high on his knees and coming down low enough that his hips meet Theo’s on every thrust, Theo deliberately catching his rhythm and rocking his hips up to match it. His fingers spasm around Liam’s, wanting to drop to Liam’s waist, wanting to _ grip _ so that he can help lift Liam up higher, pull Liam down harder, but Liam doesn’t release his hold, and in fact tightens it when he feels Theo’s tugging at it. Theo looks up at him from where his eyes had dropped between their bodies and Liam smirks at him, tightens his fingers a little _ more _ around Theo’s and then leans down to swallow the moan Theo can’t help but give at the sensation, his eyelashes fluttering and his neck arching.

It doesn’t take long before he pleasure in Theo’s gut starts winding tighter and tighter, his hips losing some of their careful rhythm, and Theo groans and twists his wrists in Liam’s grip, begs, “C’mon, Liam. Let me touch you.”

But Liam just shakes his head, murmurs, “Uh-uh. Like this,” against Theo’s mouth.

Theo bites off a noise and turns his head to capture Liam’s lips, at least, which Liam allows for a handful of heartbeats before he drags his mouth away, down across Theo’s cheek. He keeps trailing his lips across Theo’s skin as his hips keep moving, keep pumping, his mouth tracing over Theo’s ear, his neck, Liam stopping every now and then to kiss or suck at various spots, and then he skims them back up along the edge of Theo’s jaw and _ bites_. 

Theo gasps, and freezes, and comes.

He whites out a little from the force of it, his eyes squeezing shut and hips arching up _ hard _ against Liam’s. When he comes back to himself, Liam is draped over him and murmuring absent praise into his ear, _ that’s it_, and _ god damn, Theo_, the feel of his breath skating over the sensitive skin of Theo’s neck and causing him to shiver and his hips to give another few weak jerks. Panting and with little _ zings _ of pleasure still jolting through him, Theo turns his face into Liam’s, grounds himself with the feeling of Liam’s cheek against his own.

But it doesn’t take him long to realize that Liam is still hard against his stomach, and Theo groans and goes to drop his arms to Liam’s waist, fully intending to get a hand around him, when he realizes that Liam still has his hands pinned above his head. Liam must notice his aborted move because he leans up—leaning _ on _ Theo’s hands to do it—and holds himself over Theo, mouth curved in a satisfied smile.

“Stay,” He orders, and presses down harder on Theo’s hands for a moment before releasing them and sitting up further; the movement causes Theo to slip out of him and Theo’s breath hitches as a startled burst of pleasure bolts through him, his now-empty fingers clenching around air. 

But he keeps his hands where they are, where Liam put them; he stays.

Liam studies him for a moment, clearly to see if Theo is planning on complying with his instructions, and then, when he’s apparently satisfied that Theo isn’t going to try and get clever, he braces one hand in the middle of Theo’s chest and wraps the other around himself, his mouth immediately dropping open around a breathy moan and his eyelashes fluttering shut. Staring up at him, Theo has to groan and turn his palms flat against the couch cushion beneath them, dig his fingers into the fabric to keep from reaching for Liam instead, a small corner of his mind desperately hissing _ no claws, no claws, no claws _ as he does. 

It’s worth it, though, for the way that Liam’s head drops back as he starts to work himself, for the way that the fingers of his bracing hand clench against Theo’s chest. _ No claws_, Theo repeats mindlessly to himself, but Liam isn’t nearly so careful, the tips of his fingers against Theo’s skin taking on a hint of supernatural sharpness that sears through Theo, even with his recent orgasm. _ C’mon, Liam, c’mon_, Theo finds himself thinking, his fingers—_no claws_—digging harder into the couch cushion and his hips jerking helplessly at the feeling of Liam’s thighs tightening around them, harder and harder as he gets closer and closer. 

“Fuck, _ Theo_,” Liam gasps out soon after, the rhythm of his hand starting to falter, and Theo stares up at him intently, waiting, _ waiting_.

And then—the second he feels the first splash of Liam’s release on his chest—he rears up and takes Liam’s slack mouth, swallows the rest of his moan as Liam shudders and works himself through the last of his orgasm, his fingers skimming Theo’s stomach as he does. Theo groans and kisses him harder, one hand clutched around the back of Liam’s head to hold him steady for Theo’s tongue and the other dropping to wrap around his waist, pull Liam tighter against himself as Liam gives one last, gasping shiver and then takes his hand away from himself, wraps it and his other arm around Theo’s shoulders instead.

They stay like that for a handful of long, slow minutes, Liam’s kisses steadily getting less sloppy and gentler as he comes down, Theo holding him through it and eventually dropping the hand he’d had buried in Liam’s hair to his back, tracing light, dragging patterns over his skin. Liam shivers at the sensation and slumps against him after a while, resting his forehead against the join of Theo’s neck and shoulder and letting his arms drop to wrap loosely around Theo’s waist. Closing his eyes, Theo turns his face against the top of Liam’s head, kisses it once before laying his cheek against it. 

Finally Liam groans and leans back, falls backwards onto the couch behind him with a muted _ thump_. Theo lets him go, eyebrows rising curiously as he looks down at Liam; at his panting chest and his knees still splayed open around Theo’s hips, his thighs. Liam looks back, and then he smirks and brings a bare foot up to brace it on one of Theo’s hips, nudge him lightly.

“I guess that’s the score evened,” He says smugly, and Theo doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about until he remembers their earlier conversation, _ Scott and Derek and Malia are hypocrites _ and the lack of unsullied seating at any of the pack’s houses. 

Snorting a laugh, Theo drops a hand and squeezes the ankle attached to the foot Liam’s got on his hip, then lifts it to the side so that he can bend back over and kiss Liam once, quick but deep, before he murmurs, “Guess so,” and then stands, offers Liam a hand up.

Upstairs, Theo leaves Liam to get the shower started and heads for his rickety dresser to find them clean clothes, their dirty clothes—including Liam’s old shirt, which Theo had retrieved and started using for clean-up before Liam could lodge a successful protest—tossed into the laundry basket next to it. He pulls out two sets of sweats and—mentally resigning himself to surrendering _ another _ one to Liam’s kleptomaniac clothes-stealing ways—two shirts, and then drops the mass of fabric onto his bed. 

He’s straightening up and pulling his arms out from beneath the pile of sweats and shirts when he feels the bracelet—_Liam’s _ bracelet—drag against his wrist and he stops, stares at it. Looked at from the top of his wrist and in the dim light it could almost be mistaken for the one Argent had made Deaton put on him, but from the _ bottom_—Theo turns his wrist, something in his chest unclenching, and studies the strings holding the bracelet together; the strings that he’s already proven come apart with nothing more than a few gentle tugs. 

Jaw working, Theo brings his other hand over and rubs the heel of his palm over the bracelet—his eyes on his wrist but his ears catching the sound of Liam humming tunelessly to himself as he steps into the shower—and then he slides the fingers of his right hand back, pulls the strings loose so that the bracelet falls open, and off. 

He and Liam shower quickly, Theo’s exhaustion roaring back with a vengeance and causing him to stagger, some, under the hot spray; Liam makes a noise and braces a shoulder under one of Theo’s arms, searches his face. Theo grimaces and shrugs, then gives into the urge bubbling in his chest and brings one hand up, threads it in Liam’s hair and kisses him. It’s his left hand, which he realizes only when Liam brings his own hand up to wrap it around Theo’s wrist and almost instantly pulls back, looks at the bare skin beneath his fingers before looking back at Theo. 

And Theo feels weirdly _ guilty_, nearly tells him, _ I always hated the way the wet leather of Argent’s bracelet would feel after I showered_, but then bites his lip, and doesn’t. True as that may be, Theo’s not sure it’s the reason that he’d stared down at the strings holding Liam’s bracelet on his wrist and felt compelled to pull them; felt compelled to watch the bracelet fall open under his fingers, the bracelet falling off and onto the bed too light to make a sound. Instead he just forces himself to hold Liam’s eyes and says nothing, just lets Liam look back at him, studying him, his bare wrist still held in Liam’s fingers, until finally Liam smiles softly at him and kisses him, long and slow.

Liam beats him to drying off and getting dressed, then goes clattering down the stairs because he’s, quote, _ dying of thirst_. Theo yells at him to get him a glass, too, and then sits down on the bed as he’s pulling on his shirt, lets himself fall backwards with a heartfelt sigh once it’s on. The instant he does something starts digging into the underside of his leg and he grimaces, twists around until he can slide his fingers underneath his thigh, pull the offending item out from beneath himself. 

He’s still staring up at the bracelet, just like he had a few days ago when he’d first found it, when Liam comes clattering just as loudly back up the stairs a few minutes later, two glasses of water in his hands. He sees what Theo’s looking at and his eyebrows rise, but he doesn’t say anything immediately, just gets the glasses set down on Theo’s nightstand and then drops onto the bed, scooches around until he can flop onto his back parallel to Theo. Glancing over at him, bracelet still held up in the air above their heads, Theo searches his open expression, his clear, steady gaze; Liam patient and waiting and easy, no hint of judgement or anything but calm curiosity in his eyes.

And so Theo turns his head back forward, sucks in a deep, quick breath, and then holds out the bracelet towards Liam, waits until Liam takes it after a long moment’s pause to offer out his left wrist, held in the air between them.

Liam hesitates for a moment, looks from the bracelet in his hands to Theo’s offered wrist and then back at Theo’s eyes as he quietly asks, “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Theo agrees, just as quietly, his lips flickering in a smile before he explains, “Argent’s bracelet was a—a _ punishment_. One I deserved, and one that was inflicted on me. This is—” _ choosing to stay_, Theo thinks, but doesn’t say, “—something else.”

Liam studies him for a long, _ long _ stretch of seconds, his eyes running over inch of Theo’s face, his expression gone inscrutable and his fingers playing over the leather in his hands. But he must like whatever he sees because he smiles, suddenly, wide and bright.

“Okay,” He decides, and reaches over for Theo’s wrist, gets the bracelet in his fingers tied on; tight but not _ too _ tight.

Theo’s expecting the kiss once Liam gets the bracelet secured. What he _ isn’t _ expecting is for Liam to suddenly roll away from him after that single, quick kiss, and he feels his brow furrow, props himself up on an elbow to watch as Liam retrieves the two glasses of water he’d brought up from downstairs, turns back to Theo and offers one out. Theo stares at him, baffled, but Liam just holds the offered glass out more insistently, the expression on his face clearly indicating that he’d be shaking it if that wouldn’t end in disaster. Giving up and rolling his eyes, Theo takes the glass and then raises his eyebrows in a clear _ well?_, waits for Liam to clue him in.

Liam just beams at him, obviously thrilled with himself, and holds his own glass out with a flourish as he says, “To something else.”

Theo stares at him, initially, all his confusion and skepticism and mild irritation just falling away, replaced first with surprise and then with a bloom of warmth that grows larger and burns hotter the longer Liam sits grinning at him with his ridiculous water glass held out. And so Theo can’t help it, ignores Liam’s offered toast for a moment and darts in—carefully but intently, more than aware of the potential for a wet catastrophe—and kisses Liam, hard and deep. Liam makes a startled noise but recovers quickly, kisses him back just as hard, his free arm coming up to wrap around Theo’s shoulders.

Finally Theo pulls back and smiles at Liam, feels the corners of his own eyes crinkling as he brings his own glass forward and taps it against Liam’s. 

“To something else,” He echoes, and then takes a drink, feels his smile stretch impossibly wider when Liam jolts and laughs and then takes his own drink, his eyes never leaving Theo’s over the rim. 

Theo falls asleep that night with Liam curled into the curve of his body; with two of Liam’s fingers hooked deep between Theo’s wrist and the leather of the bracelet that Liam had given him, that he’d tied onto Theo’s wrist himself, Theo’s pulse beating steady against their backs. 

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback loved! If you liked consider a comment or a [reblog](https://eneiryu.tumblr.com/post/186911037970/patched-up-the-pavement-with-the-promise-of-us)!


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